Beneath the Ash
by TurtleFriedRice
Summary: In their life it was sin, but in death they were free to love eternally.


There was ash over practically every inch of his body, but Zoro didn't care. He'd gone away from the fleet and back into the city because he didn't care about evacuation when not one of the faces in the crowd was _him_. It was unbearably hot and this disaster was the worst they'd ever had, far worse than any earthquake or wrath from the gods he could recount.

Still, after assisting a woman and her child for a moment and spinning back on his heel, he turned back towards the source of the black smoke, scowling with what anger he could muster at the cursed mountain. It wasn't going to stop. He knew enough to not even dream it might. This was the end, the gods would not be saving them. The least he could do was find Sanji.

There was only one place the freed man could be – knowing the society they both lived in, he should have known already he wouldn't have been allowed to flee first in any evacuation – which was the place in which he worked day in and day out. Zoro could only pray from somewhere within himself that it still stood, as several buildings reaching into the hundreds with age and strength were crumbling like nothing, just the echo of their demise and the cries of those unlucky to be caught inside it left.

Sanji's bakery was located next to the grand market. Everything was so dark from the ash overcast and by now there was no one in sight, it was like a ghost town. Still, he recognized the painted sign outside the store and ran towards it like his life depended on it and in many ways he felt like it did. All he could do was curse under his breath and hope honestly it would be empty and the blond he knew so well had left to seek help.

The building creaked and the swordsman slammed the door open, his eyes desperately spreading from one end of the room to the other and stopping right on the figure of a man huddled to the side. Sanji. He was tucked in to himself, his arms clung around his knees that were already covered in ash.

The cook's face was dirty too, but he looked up at him with wide and conscious eyes. They were shocked, since he obviously wasn't expecting to see Zoro burst in there and find him, but also angry and sad at the very fact the soldier had come back to find him in this mess. Before he could even think, he was up on his feet, which were bare and burning against the hot ash on the floor and approached the other. He paused a moment, taking in the soldier's face, then shoved him back.

"You idiot, you fucking idiot! What are you doing here? Get out of the city!" he yelled, continuing to try and force the other outside of the door, but to no avail.

"The fuck, no I'm not leaving without you. What are _you_ doing here? Why haven't you evacuated?" Zoro growled back, his hand reaching out to attempt to brush some ash away from Sanji's face, only for his hand to be smacked away.

The blond opened his mouth to retort, but a rumble traveled through the ground and his body moved forward on its own, instinctively grabbing on to his forbidden lover. To him, Zoro should've known well enough why he couldn't leave. Ever since he'd became a free man, his bakery was all that Sanji had in this world, it was his dream and all that he had worked for.

"This is just another storm, it'll pass. This is my store so I have to stay with it." He pressed his lips tightly together, pushing himself away once more in resistance from the way Zoro tried to wrap his arms around him and gazed up at the soldier's face that was watching him silently, desperately wanting to understand. "You shouldn't be here. Where is your wife? You bastard, you should be protecting her!"

Zoro ground his teeth. In their last moments, this was not the conversation he wanted to have, he didn't want to be reminded about the person he was forced to marry, he wanted to be with Sanji. There was a part of him that wanted to forcefully take the cook and make a run for it, hoping for the best that they could reach it to the sea and maybe by then, just maybe the boats would finally be in the clear to leave and lead them to safety. But he knew better than that.

This was everything to Sanji, it was all he could keep for himself. He'd heard time and time again the sufferings of his lover and the way his life had only just become his own and even then he couldn't have all the things he wanted – with great emphasis on what Sanji couldn't have in connection with Zoro, enough to make him infuriatingly angry at fate time and time again. He wouldn't take this from his blond or let this disaster do so. And the Marimo wouldn't let it take Sanji away from him, either.

He opted not to reply to his lover, only grabbing his hand roughly and dragging him back to the corner in haste, where he assumed it was a better place to stand away from the door and the windows. Then, gently, Zoro guided him to rest against the wall so that he could really give him a look over.

"What happened to your shoes?" he whispered hoarsely, squeezing his hand on the blond's shoulder.

Another tremor of the earth and they were closer once more, crouching down to the floor. Sanji curled in to him, an arm clinging loosely off from Zoro's frame and his armor.

"I gave them to a woman, she needed them more… but bastard, why did you come back for me?"

"Dammit cook, this isn't the time for chivalry! Think of yourself for once!" The words were scolding, but drenched in concern. Slowly, he lifted up his breast plate, moving it over protectively to cover the blond's thin tunic. Sanji resisted at first, but melted under the soldier's stern expression he'd given into many, many times before. "I'm a soldier, but I'll protect _my_ people."

There was something bittersweet about being called one of Zoro's 'people' in such a situation. He'd only ever crush the dreams he'd had before where Zoro would refer to him out loud so fondly. Leave it to the Marimo to finally get around to it only when everyone else had fled from sight. Perhaps that was the point?

"You're over reacting. This will be over soon; you don't have to stay here. What if they found you here with me?" Sanji muttered under his breath.

Zoro sighed deeply, squinting his eyes in the dark to really find Sanji's face. Without thinking really, his hand moved and he caressed the blond's cheek, smudging the dirt off it that had been irritating him. Sanji should never appear filthy, far from it.

"This won't get better, Cook. The smoke keeps getting thicker and the boats can't leave the harbor."

"I'm surprised you even found the bay," Sanji snorted. "Who knew when the world was ending, you'd come find me?"

"You know damn well I always find you."

The structure began to shake, rubble piling up on the roof and testing its strength. Zoro hovered over Sanji quick, shielding the other with his body, gazing down at him with a hint of fear. He was a powerful warrior whose title of 'demon' proceeded him – and Sanji knew the end was really near if even Zoro, someone he knew to never break his composure, showed fear.

Sanji bit into his bottom lip. It was the end of the freaking world, the last he'd ever see of anything or of Zoro and yet he couldn't help but be weighed down by guilt. Why had he let Zoro hold himself back for him? Why had he over stepped over his boundaries? Zoro's love should be in safety with his wife, his family, not here inside a crumbling city.

"This is my fault. Why did you have to come back? I'm the sinner, this is my hell, you don't deserve to be here."

Zoro let out a sarcastic snort, literally thinking 'as if' when he reached down and took one of Sanji's hands and squeezed it, prompting the cook to look back up at his face. It made him nervous how cold and shaking the blond was, regardless of the rising temperatures around them.

"We're both sinners, idiot. Don't take all the credit."

No matter how many times he hinted at being there willingly, Sanji couldn't bring himself to accept it, though something inside him really hoped it was true. He gazed up at Zoro's face, exhausted. The cook felt like he could barely move as it was, the amount of hot ash sticking around him. It'd only get worse, wouldn't it? He'd only have a little longer to say anything, but he wanted it to count.

Of course the right thing to do would be to tell the bastard he actually loved him, but a part of Sanji that was still faithful – believing in their gods - that if he didn't say it, if he didn't bring Zoro's sin to light, the swordsman could flourish and not burn in eternal hell alongside him. No, instead, Sanji did the next best thing and he reached up and pulled Zoro down the rest of the way, taking the soldier's lips into his.

It could be seen as almost a greeting, but both of them knew it was something much more. When he pulled, away they still held each other, their foreheads pressed together and noses almost touching. Both had to close their eyes, the wind and smog picking up and becoming unbearable. There were times he thought Zoro tried to speak, but it was only the sounds of the city collapsing even still around them, or perhaps just his imagination. Finally though, Sanji said what he needed, feeling the biggest wave from the quakes so far.

"Thank you," he whispered out to the soldier, watching his eyes open, hearing a little of what he could say.

Sanji's thanks were more than just for giving him his love. It was about Zoro coming to find him, so he wouldn't have to be alone. It was to thank the swordsman for being willing to burn in hell with him, for loving him. And in more ways than one, freeing Sanji and supporting his dream enough to die here in the place he worked hard for.

There was a lot more the cook wanted to say of course, like his beloved's name, but he would never get the opportunity. There was a deafening sound and the last thing he felt was Zoro pushing him down while everything grew hot and finally craved in. Then, there was nothing.

"These are the 'forbidden lovers'," Mrs. Nico explained, a smile on her face as she sat up on the small ledge in front of the glass and folded her legs to the side elegantly. "They are two men who were found incased in ash from the Pompeii disaster. The reason why they are called forbidden lovers is not because of how they were found and their genders, it was actually quite common that men had a male lover in this age, but because of their status."

She turned towards the glass, taking a deep breath as her eyes trailed down the near statue behind it. It was just like the scene so many years ago, only encased in thick ash and immortalized. There was something sad to know this was a way someone had died and Robin never forgot that in her work, but she took pride in the fact that their sufferings weren't for nothing and contributed greatly to her goal of understanding the past.

But her eyes were still sad. Perhaps she was really a hopeless romantic, but she seemed to connect with this artifact more than anything else. She knew neither of these men, but at the same time she felt she did and understood what their life must have been like. The archeologist tapped on the glass lightly in gesture to the larger male on top, covering over the other, his muscles defined in the near stone.

"It's believed that this one, Asura as we've named him, was an elite soldier. He's missing his chest armor because he sacrificed it and placed it onto his freed man, Prince." She guided her finger to the other one. "He wasn't really a Prince, but from the way Asura's body is posed and how he protected him wholeheartedly, I believed to him he was worthy of royalty and praise, so we gave him that name. We can tell his status was higher than a slave but lower than a free born man from his clothing."

Asura and his Prince. A fitting name, she was quite proud of it. She only hoped it did the true story some justice. Sadly, she pulled her face away from the display and at the college students peering at her. Most of them were bored out of their minds – they didn't care what discovery she had made or how many degrees and awards she had that she was trying, as their professor, to give them insight to.

They just wanted an easy grade, standing around and looking at all of the old stuff, as some would put it. Did they even understand that these were real people? They had lives and love and it was all taken from them in the course of maybe only 24 hours? How if history told them one thing, it was that it liked to repeat itself, what if they too ended up in this type of situation? Would it be just an easy grade then? Still, she couldn't get angry at all of them. Two of the students, not ones she thought would actually be listening, were hanging on to each of her words.

"Asura and Prince died around midnight after the eruption. They probably couldn't even tell it was that late, considering how dark the volcanos plume had become and where it had spread. But they, like many of the thousands of other Pompeii and Herculaneum died when a pyroclastic flow escaped the volcano and engulfed everything, bringing temperatures of nearly 300 Celsius and killing them all instantly."

Her eyes gazed downward. "By morning, they were under an estimated 20 metres of just volcanic materials alone, leaving our two lovers to remain hidden alone under the rubble for so long before being found. Pompeii and Herculaneum were cleared right off the map. We were lucky to find anything at all."

She sighed, standing up from her seat. "But that's enough of that. I know the real reason why you came. To the dinosaur exhibit, right? Alright, we can go, I shall show you my favorite. I call him Franky." Then she, along with majority of the class, began to move down the hall.

One of the students, though, that she'd mentioned earlier, whose eyes were larger than they should've been and he seemed to be missing several major organs in his chest, filling it with nothing but anxiety, took a step closer to the glass after most of the class cleared out and peered in at the two enclosed men. He ignored his own reflection against the glass, mostly the green from his hair, and fought the weirdest urge to get emotional as his mind finally became clear.

So this was what had happened to _them_.

Clenching his jaw tight and making sense of the story he'd just been told, the clarity he'd just been shown, he turned slowly back, catching a glance at the other student just as shocked. He was tall, a skinny thing with a sailor's mouth and had his arms around two of the girls in their class who were oblivious to the way his blue eyes had widened and he had frozen, only complaining and asking why they weren't going, they wanted to see the dinosaurs too.

The blond's eyes traveled away from the unique sight and on to his male class mate's face, to stare into the dark eyes there. They'd maybe spoken to each other a handful of times in their whole lives – through middle school, high school and college – and yet here they were, having a silent conversation of understanding, among many questions of confusion.

Sanji swallowed thickly, tightening his hold around the two ladie's waists and guided them to turn silently and he began to slowly walk off. Zoro stepped back from the glass, a few paces after him, but stopped. The cook could walk away now and play like he didn't just remember everything that had happened, but the soldier knew the truth. He knew he had the same moment of recollection as he had. They'd talk about it soon enough, whether Sanji liked it or not.

* * *

**Author's Note: XD Dont ask! I know its cheesy and dumb and stuff but Pompeii was one of the most interesting stories I learned about when I was a kid and i keep hearing the song by Bastille everywhere so I got inspired to zosan it, kind of. Not the movie that just came out thats apparently shitty. But yeah. Thank you soo much to the lovely MyLadyDay for the beta!  
**  
Oh also just want to say I tried doing lots of research and watching documentaries and get into it so things would be kind of accurate but I'm sure theres still alot off that isnt. Sorry QuQ ****


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